The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent the work is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Multicast communications allow data to be provided to multiple end points from a single source during a given time period. In contrast, unicast communications provide data to a single end point from a single source during a similar time period. Data transfer time is lower for multicast communications than it is for unicast communications because multicast communications allow data to be received by more ends points for a similar amount of time.
Broadband Internet media delivery services, such as Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), commonly use multicast packets to transport data. In contrast, wireless local-area networks (WLANs) are commonly used to distribute unicast data. Because multicast packets are not acknowledged in WLANs, multicast packets are subject to high error rates. These high error rates may significantly reduce the quality of the media being delivered and so render WLANs unsuitable for communications involving multicast packets.